Someone ever tried transplanting a brass baseplate into a Duncan?

[Rex_Rocker]

Do they even sell aftermarket brass baseplates that fit Duncans?

I'd like to further warm/fatten my Distortion Neck. Well, not really, but I feel curious to do the experiment.

Thoughts?

 

[Chistopher]

5 nF cap to ground would do it and be of no risk to your pickup. In theory there shouldn't be a major difference between brass and nickel silver on the baseplate. If you've ever experimented with brass versus nickel silver covers, it will probably be in the same range of subtly as that. The cap value I gave will do about the same level of change.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

5 nF cap to ground would do it and be of no risk to your pickup. In theory there shouldn't be a major difference between brass and nickel silver on the baseplate. If you've ever experimented with brass versus nickel silver covers, it will probably be in the same range of subtly as that. The cap value I gave will do about the same level of change.

Cap even if I don't have a tone knob? Where in the chain should it be?

I'm not afraid of destroying the pickup, TBH. I've already messed with it. It originally came with a gold cover which I removed. I then removed the gold polepieces and replaced them with nickel polepieces from a P Rails which I hated the sound of. Then I swapped the magnet. I don't feel attached to it, nor do I feel in love with how it sounds, and would probably like to try a 496R in there at some point. But maybe I can stumble across something nice by messing with it.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Another thing I could do is just rewire the guitar, 500K volume for the bridge as it is right now, and 250K for the neck. But meh. I feel it's more fun and thrilling to replace the baseplate, LOL. Like a Franken-Duncan.

 

[Chistopher]

In which case go crazy with it. If I find a pickup is too bright or not fat enough, I wire a capacitor in series from the hot lead of the pickup to ground.

In other words, find wherever the red wire from your pickup comes from, solder one end of a resistor there, and the other end to ground.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Duncan SH spacing is 49.2mm, right?

Like this? https://nextgenguitars.ca/products/pickup-baseplate-for-humbucker-49-2mm-brass.html

 

[Clint 55]

Yes, I put brass baseplates from some pos pickups onto some 59s. I liked the result. It warms it up in a rich but subtle way that sounds like it permeates the whole eq. A cap would not simulate the effect at all. All I had to do was dremel some of the holes wider.

 

[RayBarbeeMusic]

5 nF cap to ground would do it and be of no risk to your pickup. In theory there shouldn't be a major difference between brass and nickel silver on the baseplate. If you've ever experimented with brass versus nickel silver covers, it will probably be in the same range of subtly as that. The cap value I gave will do about the same level of change.

5nf is HUGE. 500 -700 pf would be more like it.

 

[freefrog]

If I can share my 2 cents...

1-The main (and variably perceptible) effect of Brass baseplates is to bring more distortion by rising eddy currents (Foucault currents).

2-I've wrote "variably perceptible" because as always, this effect is more of less obvious according to the exact composition / specs of each part (baseplate included) AND of course to the rig used + its level of gain...

3-When I change a BP and find it doesn't fit, I use drilling and cutting tools. I've even cut slices of brass in order to put them under the magnet(s) + coils and to bring these eddy currents mentioned above. It works within the limits evoked in paragraph 2 (but it's not for nothing that Bill Lawrence had designed his pickups with magnetically inert BP's and has even extended this principle to Gibson Tar-Back's).

Mimicing faithfully eddy currents would require a complex network involving for instance a transformer in series with a pickup. If I had to mimic the THD due to a brass BP thx to simpler added component(s), Maybe I'd start with diodes from hot to ground + parallel resistance. The tricky part would be to find the proper forward voltage, by taking in account the output level of the pickup involved.
The idea to put a cap from hot to ground is understandable since different BP's shift the frequency of a resonant peak. But paradoxically, Foucault currents slightly shift it UP in frequencies and down in amplitude on a limited bandwidth, just before the main resonant peak. EDIT-effect shown there in figure 5:
http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/
Imitating this would require to put a low value capacitor from hot to ground between the coils of a humbucker, for example, and to limit its action with a resistor. An even better imitation might be obtained from a choke in series with a cap then with a ballast resistor, in parallel with the diodes mentioned above.... <:0)

I stop my drivel here. FWIW: my 2 cents (words are cheap). ;-)

 

[idsnowdog]

Changing baseplate material does have an effect on tone. Brass is mellow and midrange oriented while nickel/silver is scooped with percussive bass, sharp highs and scooped mids. I have gone both ways with baseplates.

 

[ehdwuld]

You can get cheap pickups
with identical specs and different magnets
Different baseplates

Then a/b them one to one to see what the difference is

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I'm starting to think it might not be worth it, and I should just get a DiMarzio Norton or something, LOL.

 

[freefrog]

I'm starting to think it might not be worth it, and I should just get a DiMarzio Norton or something, LOL.

If the goal is to change a Duncan in DiMarzio, it won't necessarily work, as a matter of fact. ;-)

Somehow sorry to have polluted your thread with geeky considerations from a tired old fart. Maybe I should have shared something more obvious, about tonal consequences rather than causes... It would have been in the line of what Clint55 and idsnowdog said about perceived effects.

This video @ 2:45 and 6:02 seems to me realistic when it comes to illustrate sonically a baseplate swap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-DWD16xDeU​

This one, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xJxNADZCco

If ever theoretical data have still their place, I had shared some experimental results in the topic below, 6 years ago, and Frank Falbo had also contributed about the "difference between covered/uncovered or baseplate material, basically things that are eddy current related"...

Link: https://forum.seymourduncan.com/forum/the-pickup-lounge/313133-nickel-silver-vs-brass/page2

FWIW.

 

[Chistopher]

5nf is HUGE. 500 -700 pf would be more like it.

I wouldn't say huge, 5 nF is small enough that the pickup is noticeably darker, but not small enough where you splitting hairs trying to figure out if there's even a difference.

For those who don't want to do the conversion 5 nF = 5000 pF = 0.005 uF

 

[Clint 55]

The only value cap I tried hardwired that didn't sound like it was chopping off a significant portion of the sound was 100pf.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

If the goal is to change a Duncan in DiMarzio, it won't necessarily work, as a matter of fact. ;-)

Somehow sorry to have polluted your thread with geeky considerations from a tired old fart. Maybe I should have shared something more obvious, about tonal consequences rather than causes... It would have been in the line of what Clint55 and idsnowdog said about perceived effects.

This video @ 2:45 and 6:02 seems to me realistic when it comes to illustrate sonically a baseplate swap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-DWD16xDeU​

This one, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xJxNADZCco

If ever theoretical data have still their place, I had shared some experimental results in the topic below, 6 years ago, and Frank Falbo had also contributed about the "difference between covered/uncovered or baseplate material, basically things that are eddy current related"...

Link: https://forum.seymourduncan.com/forum/the-pickup-lounge/313133-nickel-silver-vs-brass/page2

FWIW.

That's a very intesting watch! THank you.

Yeah, I'm not expecting to turn my Distortion Neck into a Norton. I just want to see if I can salvage it. I've come to the conclusion I don't really like it, LOL.

I tend to prefer DiMarzio neck pickups because (not always), they seem to be rounder, fatter, and smoother. Like I was saying in another thread, I like my neck pickups fat and smooth (but not muddy) and my bridge pickups hard and biting. I like my neck neck-y and my bridge bridge-y.

 

[RayBarbeeMusic]

I wouldn't say huge, 5 nF is small enough that the pickup is noticeably darker, but not small enough where you splitting hairs trying to figure out if there's even a difference.

For those who don't want to do the conversion 5 nF = 5000 pF = 0.005 uF

If you don't think it's HUGE, I suggest you try it. It is HUGE. I use .001uf on a humbucker bridge and .0015uf on a humbucker neck for tone caps, and rolled all the way down, it makes a VERY noticeable difference. You're talking about 500% of that rolled right to ground.

Try it.

 

[Chistopher]

If you don't think it's HUGE, I suggest you try it. It is HUGE. I use .001uf on a humbucker bridge and .0015uf on a humbucker neck for tone caps, and rolled all the way down, it makes a VERY noticeable difference. You're talking about 500% of that rolled right to ground.

Try it.

I suppose it depends on what you're going for. If you ask me, anything more than 10 nF on a tone control cuts too much and any thing smaller than 5 nF does too little. On a knob at least.

This definitely makes the point that it is worth experimenting with values. Roughly 3 nF is what PRS uses to simulate an 100 foot long cable for reference.

 

[freefrog]

If it can help and for reference about the tonal effect of parallel capacitance: in the vid below, the capacitive load of 100 ft of cable is potentially between 3nF and 4.4nF while the 3 ft one would measure 101pF to 147pF: the lowest of these two values is the average one for 46 contemporary cables considered as of good quality. The 2d and highest one is the average capacitance of +/- 50 older and cheaper cables, going sometimes up to 300pF per meter...


https://youtu.be/4BmkaS91NHQ?si=eTG5cUKSTPM3w5MI&t=563

BTW, here is the measured capacitance of a straight cable measuring 16m / 52.5 ft... The meter had been set to ignore the capacitance of its own probes and each jack plug measured the usual 10pF. It leaves us with 210pF per meter, which is a high value but not rare with old wires... So maybe the 100ft of cable in the vid above mount to 6.8nF of parasitic capacitance, after all.

 

[RayBarbeeMusic]

I suppose it depends on what you're going for. If you ask me, anything more than 10 nF on a tone control cuts too much and any thing smaller than 5 nF does too little. On a knob at least.

This definitely makes the point that it is worth experimenting with values. Roughly 3 nF is what PRS uses to simulate an 100 foot long cable for reference.

But we're not talking about tone controls, we're talking about simulating the difference between a brass and NS base plate. The suggestion of 5nf is an order of magnitude too large.

This is 5nf right off the signal to ground. Try that. Solder in a 5nf cap from hot to case on your volume. Still think that's right? If that were the way to simulate the base plate difference, dimarzios would have to be BRIGHT AF absent the brass plate. They aren't.

Even G&L mfds, which actually are BRIGHT AF if left alone, only use a 2.2nf snubber to tame them, which still leaves them just a bit warmer than an A5 single. 5nf would make even those, which are sub 5k of ga. 42 with ceramic mags, very dark.